After much back and forth, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and Super Falcons coach Randy Waldrum have finally reached an agreement on a new contract.
This declaration was made on Tuesday by NFF President Ibrahim Gusau while summarizing the developments in the talks between the NFF and Randy Waldrum.
Remember that Waldrum’s original contract with the NFF ended on October 31, 2023, which indicates that the American strategist has been without a contract for about three months. In 2020, he signed his first contract with the football body.
The Falcons made it to the Women’s World Cup round of 16 in Australia and New Zealand in 2023 and the WAFCON semifinals in Morocco in 2022 both under Waldrum’s direction.
Since Waldrum’s assistant Justin Madugu assumed interim team leadership and proceeded to lead the team to success, there have been rumors that the NFF may decide not to extend Randy Waldrum’s contract.
However, Gusau has said that after lengthy discussions, the coach and the federation decided to keep working together. He continued by saying that the coach’s insistence on bringing his assistant and his demands for more allowances were the reasons the talks had taken longer than expected.
The NFF president projected that the deal would likely be signed on Thursday before the federation’s delegation left for the 2023 AFCON in Ivory Coast.
“We had a lot of discussions with Waldrum, and I believe he’s agreed,” the speaker stated. We had disagreements before to the World Cup on Waldrum’s preferences for the team, but there is no mention of Waldrum’s ability to bring an assistant in the NFF and Waldrum’s contract.
“He brought up the woman’s issue during contract negotiations, stating he wants her on the squad, but I told him we don’t want her because I know her situation.
He mentioned raising his allowances, but we declined. From my perspective, the Falcons failed to improve upon their best World Cup result, which was a quarterfinal showing. He thus didn’t fit the requirements for us to discuss getting him a bigger allowance.
That is what happened prior to his eventual consent to accompany us. With any luck, the agreement will be finalized before we depart for AFCON.
